Working from home is an accepted way of earning a living these days. Maybe this is tempting because of long distances that often need to be traveled to reach one’s work destination, or perhaps due to a need to look after a family member while earning an income. Whatever the reason, it makes sense if that is what you have your mind set on.
So what kind of work can you do from home? That depends on your skills, your passion and what you feel you can best deliver to your clients.
My experience of working from home is with two different types of business, and those are what I am sharing with you now.
The first type of business is selling a service. The service that I sold was a virtual secretarial service.
The second type of business is affiliate marketing, which I did part-time for a few years, and full-time for the past two years.
Table of Contents
Service provider or Affiliate Marketer?
Let’s look the differences between selling a service and working in the role of an affiliate marketer.
Virtual Secretarial Business
To be a successful virtual secretary, the first thing required is excellent keyboard skills as in speed and accuracy. Also an excellent command of the English language is required.
Anyone who meets those requirements and wishes to proceed with the set-up of their new business, the next factor to consider is equipment.
Equipment needs to be reliable as in, a reliable internet connection, a reliable computer, printer and scanner, and excellent transcribing equipment. Not to overlook a reasonably sized desk and a very comfortable office chair.
One of the main services that a virtual secretary must be able to provide is digital transcription. I can say that without providing a transcription service, it is unlikely that a business of a virtual secretary will survive, or perhaps not even get off the ground, so to speak, in these digital times we are living in.
Be Willing to Meet Your Clients
Even though when running a virtual secretarial business, communication with most clients is by email, or perhaps by phone, there are occasions when the client wishes to meet you. Some clients prefer to explain their requirements face to face. Therefore adequate office space is necessary as this conveys an appearance of professionalism.
So having provided yourself with your equipment, the next thing you will need to do is promote your business.
Expense of Promoting Your Business
There is an expense to promoting any business. Whether it is paid advertising on the internet, printed flyers, businesses cards, subscriptions to attend network meetings, it will cost you to promote your business. Also a business needs to be represented by a website, hence another expense unless you have the skills to build your own website. Even if you do build your website there is the cost of a domain name, plus an annual hosting fee.
Invoicing clients and receiving payment in a timely manner is an important factor to take into consideration. It happens at times that people do not respect the value of a work—from-home business and try to undercut the service provider, delay payment of invoices or, worse still, do not pay at all. These are facts of life. Annoying as they are, they just have to be accepted with a need to ‘move on’. However, I see it as a point worth alerting a new business owner to.
Affiliate Marketing Business
Affiliate Marketing really is a great business for those who wish to earn income working from home. There are so many benefits from being absolutely and totally your own boss.
The predominant expenses for setting up an affiliating marketing business are a reliable internet connection, a reliable computer or laptop, a domain name for your website and hosting fees. Working as an affiliate marketer we are not dealing with clients and we do not need to provide an office for meetings.
I expect that because you are interested in working from home, it is very likely you have read other people’s comments about affiliate marketing. Comments such as how these people view the concept of affiliate marketing and what benefits or otherwise they see with earning a living this way.
What I am Sharing with You is my Experience as an Affiliate Marketer
Previously I mentioned that I had done affiliate marketing part-time, and that is true. I was successful in earning while being part-time with affiliate marketing and I was happy with that because I had my virtual secretarial business, and running two businesses at once means less time to devote to either one. Of course, the secretarial business had preference because I was serving other people and their needs had to come first.
There would be long periods when I didn’t have time to work at all on affiliate marketing, but I still received some income each month from my affiliate marketing website. And that is a valid and interesting point to consider. To do absolutely no affiliate marketing work each month and earn an income. Obviously the term for that is ‘passive income’.
Comparing the amount of time that I did NOT spend on affiliate marketing to the amount of time I spent doing secretarial work, the percentage of income from doing nothing against the percentage received for working some very long and dedicated hours was an important factor to be taken into consideration. I did not keep statistics in those days, mainly because I was too busy to take time out for stats, but I know the feeling of seeing income in my Bank account for work done long ago when I first set up my website.
Which Shall It Be?
This was the question I asked myself a few times before I made the final decision to devote all of my working hours entirely to affiliate marketing. In my heart of hearts I knew that affiliating marketing was what I wanted to settle for. I had very much enjoyed my virtual secretarial business and it wasn’t easy to give it up, but I had reached a stage where to become a full-time affiliate marketer was greatly appealing to me.
How Does This Help You?
My hope is that if you presently are not happy with your working situation that you will think seriously about doing affiliate marketing.
I advise that you do not give up your employment immediately, but that you consider the opportunities available to you as an affiliate marketer and trial it for many months, maybe a year or even longer. By that time you will either love affiliate marketing or you will decide it is not for you.
As it is with anything we decide to do in our life, the results gained from working as an affiliate marketer are as good as the effort we put in to making our business a success.
Affiliate Marketing is not a magic tool that produces income from nowhere. Affiliate Marketing is a real business that produces income to the extent of the effort we put into our business.
Do Not Get Caught By Scams
There are many scams on the internet that promote making thousands of dollars, or more, in a very short space of time. Beware of these promotions. They will take your money and leave you despondent and despaired.
Whatever your business, to be successful you need to have a passion for it. If working on the internet with your own website is a passion of yours then I recommend exploring affiliate marketing. I can lead you in the right direction, and help you to get started.
I wish you well with making your choices.
Before your leave this website I invite you to have a look at my Review of Wealthy Affiliate where you can learn about starting your own new website Free of Cost.